Multidisciplinary medical identification of a French king’s head (Henri IV)

Re: Multidisciplinary medical identification of a French king’s head (Henri IV)

Dear Editor,

In 2010, the article entitled “Multidisciplinary medical identification of a French king's head (Henri IV)” [1] was published in your Journal. Results of the genetic comparison of the mummified head and the presumptive blood from Louis XVI were published earlier this year [2]. Robust scientific arguments recently published negate the conclusions of the studies carried out by Charlier et al. Many historical facts calling into question the identification have been detailed by the French historian Philippe Delorme [3]. He highlighted, in particular, the absence of craniotomy, a consistent finding for Kings and Princes who died in the same period, and also the lack of traceability of that head, that anonymously emerged in 1919 [3]. A second major argument was the genetic analysis [4] which led to the conclusion that the analyzed samples in the study published this year [2] were not from the French Kings.

Consequently, on the basis of the above information, the retraction of the article [1] is now justified, as a rigorous scientific anthropological study should have excluded the hypothesis (and the findings) that the head belonged to Henri IV.